Old Testament Sacrifices
Taught Us To Expect A Sacrifice
Not Make One

Introduction: Leviticus 18 is a rather daunting passage of Scripture. It actually imposes the death penalty on same-sex relations between males. It is significant that it doesn’t mention women but we’ll talk about that later. For now, my intent is to use interpretive principles to determine why this command was given and see if there isn’t a softer, more generous way to understand this directive.

The Bible is a book that must be interpreted and everyone agrees but they don’t all agree on what that actually means or how it is done. As soon as you use interpretive principles to step on the toes of some prized belief, you’ve got a fight on your hands.

What It Means To Interpret The Bible

Bible believers often say they take the Bible literally. I’ve said that often and I still say it today but “literal” needs qualification.

Even if you take the Bible literally, you still must interpret the text before you can apply it.

Interpretation is at the heart of the discussion and it, more than anything else, shapes our understanding of literal. It literally changes what we mean by literal.

Simply put, interpretation is a process. To admit to the process means we aren’t taking the Bible at face value. We don’t take biblical statements and simply overlay them on human society expecting everyone to comply.

The very few who take that approach do so only selectively. They apply some passages literally and others not. The selection process between which are treated literally and which are not is done with little explanation as to how the line is drawn between the ones we obey exactly and the ones we don’t.

Why is one accepted without an interpretive exercise and another not? That question is never even explored.

The people who take a so called literal approach to the entire Bible are also thought to be weird and are viewed as outside the mainstream. As an example, neither Jews nor Muslims will eat pork. The rest of the world is enjoying a piece of bacon and wondering what’s the problem. And that’s only one issue. There are many more.

Generally, no one takes a word for word approach to the entire Bible. No one!! Some, as I’ve mentioned, claim to do so and will often try to but when they come to the Old Testament requirement for men to grow and braid their sideburns, obedience takes a turn, unless you happen to be a Hasidic Jew.

Among Christians, not even the hard core, heavy handed, fist pounding believers will go that far.

Taking the interpretive approach, we ask questions, all of us, about each idea before applying it to life. Or that’s what we should do. Asking questions is an important part of the process.

The point is no one really offers unqualified, exacting obedience to the Bible.

What The Bible Says Is Not What The Bible Teaches

More to the point, what that really means is what the Bible says is not what the Bible is actually teaching. The Bible may mean exactly what it says, but there is a huge difference between what the Bible is saying and what it is actually teaching.

Interpretation is the work we do after reading what the Bible says so we can come to an understanding of what the Bible teaches.

Most people understand this on a subconscious level but it needs to be highlighted as central to the discussion.

Taking that thought a little further, what the Bible says, the letter of the text, and what it teaches, the spirit of the text, are sometimes so different the ideas are counterintuitive which means we have to do some work to figure it out.

The connection between the meaning of the words and the teaching of the text is not always immediately clear and the only thing we can do to bring clarity is to engage the interpretive process.

That’s what it means to interpret the Bible.

Holes In The Ground vs Indoor Plumbing

Following is a good example. [Read more…] about 16 Reasons Leviticus 18 Doesn’t Deny Same-Sex Marriage